Building Details

In downtown Melbourne, Florida there are quite a few old buildings with interesting details that give them loads of character.

This first photo is on an entranceway to a shop, and these details stopped me in my tracks. I have absolutely no idea what they are.

The dark "stone" looks to be something man made and it is very rough, but the surface has millions of little flat surfaces that reflect light in great ways.



This second photo is pretty plain, but I liked the old style capstone up there with the building's name on it.

This says "Israel and Matthews Building."



The old section of Melbourne, Fl is a nice place for a stroll and a few photos.

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Remember, it's Sunday, so I have done my normal Sunday Picture Post on my other blog, Least Significant Bits. You always get more for your photography dollar with me ;-)

To the Bat Cave, Robin! er, Bat Box! er, Whatever That Is.

I'm tired of naming my posts Real Florida #whatever, though that's still what I'm trying to show you.

They had this box mounted on a tree, and it has a bat painted on it. I don't know if it's a bat feeder or a place or bats to hang out, or what. (Get it? Bats hang out... Ha Ha. Oh well. That's about as high level as my sense of humor has been operating lately.) It was interesting, and there weren't any people at this park for me to ask. Not even other visitors. I had the entire park to myself, which was nice, but I'm not above asking total strangers what that strange box could be for. I'm not normally a person that would speak to strangers, but when my curiosity is up I sure would. But there weren't even any total strangers there for me to ask. No workers at the park either, so I'll just have to imagine it being a hang out or something.

In that second photo, I just liked the way the sunlight looked through what passes for forest in this part of Florida. It was sure hot that day, and I zig-zagged as I could on the boardwalk to try to be in the shade.

It's still really hot here. The sun's definitely at a different angle and it feels like fall in my mind because of this, but the heat and humidity still are screaming SUMMER! Yeah, I know. It's technically summer, but you know what I mean. You look outside and want to go out there and do something and you almost die of heat stroke from the door of the house to the door of the car.

I'm looking forward to late October and November when we finally get a break from the worst of the heat and also that hurricane season ends with November's end.

Real Florida #7

With the hurricanes that blow through here every several years I wonder how a dead tree like this can stay standing. The only thing I can reason out is that the wind can't get a good grip on a tree without leaves or pine needles. I guess a dead tree is more aerodynamic than is a live one.

That second photo is nothing special to Florida, I just liked the shadows and lines. I reckon you can see wooden structures like this pretty much anywhere in the world. But this one was in Florida, so it makes the cut.

Real Florida #6

There are all manner of little air plants like this one in trees down here. I like them; they have lots of character and in my opinion go a long way to making your average pine tree look a more snazzy.

I'm sure that second photo just takes your breath away. It's not every day you see such a grand, sweeping view of saw palmetto plants.

Interesting note: the retired man that lives directly behind us goes out every year with his brother for a couple of weeks and they pick saw palmetto seeds. They kinda look like a small, hard concord grape. Saw palmetto is believed to help men's prostate issues.

It's one of those things that's never been scientifically proven, but he and his brother make a lot of extra cash from their efforts. I guess there's a big market for homeopathic/herbal remedies and they take advantage of this to supplement their retirement incomes.

Real Florida #4

OK. I know these two photos are about as exciting as a bucket of warm spit, but this is as Florida as Florida gets.

Before Mr. Flagler, his bulldozers, and trains came to Florida a hundred years ago, this was what Florida looked like excepting rivers and lakes.

Every place in Florida that doesn't look something like these two photos once did look something like these two photos.

Ol' Juan Ponce de León wasn't looking for the pine tree of youth, he was looking for the fountain of youth. If you're looking for fountains (springs), your best bet is in boat traveling on rivers looking for their sources.

Lord knows that there were way too many pine trees to taste test had he been looking for the pine tree of youth. Plus, look at all of that saw palmetto that his men would have had to hack their way through to get to the pine trees.

One day when I think of it, I'll take a couple of pictures of the "vacant" lot across the street from out home. It's much like these photos, only thicker and harder to penetrate.

Sorry to bust y'all's bubble, but even Cinderella's Castle at The Magic Kingdom sits on land that once looked like this.

Real Florida #3

Heading into the park on the pathway.

This is a pretty small park and basically consists of a large loop that you walk around the park on. There are numerous areas with seating for you to take a break, but those were mostly in the sunlight so I passed them up. The pathway was shaded by the trees much of the way.

I would estimate the entire walk to be a mile or so, and even in the shade most of the time, I ended up getting overheated.

Thank goodness that our Camry has a good air conditioner. I had that baby maxed out on the way back to work after my walk.

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Also, I posted a nifty photo on my other blog today if you care to go over there and see it. I worked on it last night and really liked the way it turned out.

Real Florida #2

It was such a pretty day, though hot (92F(33C), 98F(37C) with heat index), and it had been a while since I just moseyed around with camera in hand, that I had taken half a dozen shots before even entering the park itself.

I'm proud enough an American to wait for a little breeze to come up and wave the flag a bit against that beautiful blue sky. One soon arrived and I got this snap. Notice the dead trees in the background. Florida is mostly sand, saw palmetto which grow thick and close to the ground, and pine trees. Alive and dead.

The second photo is where they had recently planted some plants to attract butterflies for one of their butterfly gardens. I didn't see any butterflies though.

I guess I was the only moron willing to risk heat stroke by flittering around the park that hot summer afternoon.

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Today, on my other blog, Least Significant Bits, I posted six old family photos of my Dad's side of my family. If any of you care to, you can go on over and take a gander.

Real Florida #1

This week I went to walk in a park near where I work.

We all know of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico's nice beaches and tropical look. You've probably seen photos of nice homes with lush grass, flowers, and palm trees. If you have been to a Disney hotel in Orlando, then you've seen the lush landscaping that makes the area look like a tropical paradise.

Most of the lushness is due to watering and landscaping. Florida is really scruffy looking on it's own, without man's intervention.

The park I went to, Erna Nixon Park in Melbourne, Florida is typical in that it simply tries to preserve, inform, and showcase Florida's natural plants.

I ended up with quite a few interesting photos, and since it's been a while since I've had new photos to show here, you'll probably be getting these for a while.

The first photo was taken after stepping out of the Camry and closing the door. The sky looked amazing, framed by the tree limbs above me and the trees across the parking lot.

The second photo is just a zoom on the spiffy clouds.

The final photo is the park's sign. Notice the red "Fire Danger High" sign attached to the left of the main sign. Though we've had decent rain this year, Florida is pretty much totally made up of things that NEED to burn and will burn easily. Many of the plants down here don't drop their seeds until they are scorched by the heat of a fire.

They do lots of controlled burns down here in the forests, but not the city parks like this one so they are always careful of fire.

Man, let me tell you, it was hot! We have to keep the labs at work pretty cold with all the computers and electronics running, so I was glad to get back into the cold air even though I had a really fun time photographing stuff on my walk.

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If you feel like reading for a couple of minutes, I wrote about a dream of mine coming true on my other blog today.

Downtown Melbourne....(Florida)

I've always wanted to go to Australia, but Melbourne, Florida is as close as I've ever been.

Well, actually Hawaii was geographically closer, but Melbourne, Florida was named by a Melbourne, Australia transplant, so that means more in my book.


I took both of these one pleasant evening when Lovely Wife and I were moseying about the old downtown section of our Melbourne.

There's not really anything unique there, and there's nothing to buy there that you can't get in other towns, but it is a great place to stroll about.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

I took the first photo at a local marina in Melbourne, Florida. Not wanting to disturb the owners of the boat docked there, I stepped onto their boat very gently to get the shot, and afterward, stepped back onto the dock in such a way as to barely make the boat rock. They probably just thought I was the wind, right? I was like ol' Kung Fu when he had to walk on the rice paper without disturbing it at all.

The second photo makes me furious still, just to see it again. The sign clearly says, no parking on the grass, yet there's this inconsiderate boob who parked his gas-guzzling, environmental disaster of an SUV on the grass! Can you believe the nerve of some people? AND, he's out there in the water, tooling around in his fossil fuel burning motor boat JUST FOR FUN. This earth killer probably doesn't recycle, uses aerosol hair spray AND aerosol deodorant too!





OK. For those of you with no sense of humor, I never stepped on anyone's boat. Heck, I'm a big enough guy to almost tip over an ocean liner, so stepping on and off a private boat would be VERY obvious. I only had to lean a little bit to get the shot.

And the parking lot is a parking area for a boat ramp nearby and the parking area is made of a criss-cross pattern of bricks and dirt so the water dripping from the trailers after launching the boat will soak into the ground. Over time grass has grown up in the dirt and the actual parking area is partially covered in grass. The angle from which I took the photo is such that you can't see the bricks he's parked amid the grass.

Black and White #15

Another couple of shots in the old section of Melbourne, Florida.

A little, tiny park with benches near a train crossing. There are many, many little parks like this throughout Brevard County. Little bitty fellers; this one I would estimate is about 1500 square feet, about the size of my home's footprint. Small, well-kept patches of greenery and flowers.

And the interesting lamps lined up on the front of this store.

Open / Closed

A couple of entrances to a couple of nice shops in the old, downtown section of Melbourne, Florida.

A great place for moseying.

Bridge Over Crane Creek

This is a neat bit of civic beautification that was sponsored by local businesses.

The bridge is a section of U.S. 1, which goes from Key West to somewhere in Maine. In the picture here, the bridge is over a secondary road as well as Crane Creek, which was behind me as I took these photos.

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And don't forget to visit my other blog, I always post pictures on Sunday.

At The Library

This is a donated statue that stands in front of one of the branches of the Brevard County Public Library in Melbourne, Florida. I like to go to this particular branch because of it's large selection of books when compared to some of the smaller branches.

I've always liked this statue, dedicated to the donator's grandchildren, and children everywhere.

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I'm doing better today. Just a sore back from the procedure and some bad memories. Two of my fellow engineers where I work lost a daughter and a brother this week. It makes me realize that a medical procedure that doesn't go very well and causing me pain is much easier to deal with than the death of immediate family members.

My heart and prayers go out to Gary T. and his wife who lost their 21 year old daughter a few days ago in a car accident in Orlando. My heart and prayers go out to Phil C. whose brother passed away this week from pancreatic cancer at the age of 44.

Prayer Request / Dowtown Melbourne, FL

I would appreciate your prayers today.

I have a myelogram scheduled this morning (Monday) at 9am (US Eastern).

The procedure is similar to a spinal tap, but instead of withdrawing spinal fluid to check for viruses and whatnot, and while they have the spinal cavity tapped, they inject dye into it and as the dye spreads, they look at the area on a fluoroscope. The fluoroscope is like an x-ray, but shows things real time on a monitor instead of having to develop film.

Once the radiologist does the tap, and looks to see what damage he can see on the fluoroscope, they then will put me on a CAT scan for the best imaging they can get.

Then I have to stay there under their observation for four hours to ensure the spinal tap area stops bleeding.

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Both of today's photos were taken in the old downtown section of Melbourne, Florida.

In the top one, the flower pots seemed to jump out at me, so I desaturated the colors from everything else. I kinda like the way it turned out.

In the bottom one, well I liked the old buildings that have become specialty shops, but to me, the star of the photo is the golden sun of the late evening.

Meg O'Malley's

I took these this past Saturday when Lovely Wife and I were in Meg O'Malley's in downtown Melbourne, Florida for lunch.

It's supposedly an Irish pub, but everybody I know down here loves to go there to eat.

I'm one of those people who LOVE plain, simple food. I can watch gourmet stuff on TV that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. I'm really simple when it comes to food choices.

Anyway, I had never been to O'Malley's and so we stopped in and had lunch. Quite tasty grub.

I liked the stained glass window of the castle above the front door.

The little carving of the leprechaun under the light was our table's light in the booth where we ate.

I've never been out of the U.S., so I wouldn't know an authentic Irish pub if one ran over me, but they had some rugby championship on the TV above the bar that we could see from our booth. So I guess if they had rugby on TV, it MUST be an authentic Irish pub. Right?

Black and White #9

On Saturday, Lovely Wife and I ran errands, bought furniture, and in general wore ourselves out.

We went to the old downtown Melbourne, Florida area to eat lunch at Meg O'Malley's and this consignment store was across the street and they had all kinds of stuff out on the sidewalks and the insides of the store had every kind of household item that you could think of. Old flour sifters and dishes like our grandparents and great grandparents had; furniture, and also totem poles and this incredible carved piece of wood.

The face was carved into a root system of a small tree that had been pulled up and dried (I guess) and I tried to convert it to black and white and to give it the look and feel of seeing it at night under the light of a bright full moon. It's funny how some photos are black and white in your mind before you even press the shutter button.

The totem poles were all bunched together in the very back corner of the store, and although the color version looks really good too, I liked this high contrast black and white version a bit better.

Poodles Driving A Car

The top photo of the poodles in the convertible was taken in the store that had Betty Boop out front in yesterday's photos. We have poodles and Lovley Wife had a fit over this. I love our little yappers and can't wait to see them at the end of the day. They greet me like my daughters did when they were little. So, no anti-poodle bigotry in the comments, ya hear? This guy does NOT think that poodles are for wimps. (Just kidding. I actually love to see the look on people's faces when they see a guy my size holding a 6lb ball of white fur with black eyes.)

The bottom photo is just a photo looking down New Haven Avenue in downtown Melbourne, Florida. There's a shop there on the left, with the chalk board out front, that makes soap in the store itself, and the smell is almost as good as walking past a restaurant. You can visit it on the internet at indianriversoap.com, though due to technical difficulties, you won't be able to smell the store. Sorry.

I tried and tried and couldn't find any html commands to deliver scent to you.

Betty Boop

Taken in front of a great little store in downtown Melbourne, Florida.

The store is full of nick-nacks that the owner picks out herself from all over the world. They're much, much cooler than the kind of things you find in department stores and malls.

Hey, I'm a guy, and even I still love to walk around in this store and always see stuff I'd like to have. Only problem is that engineers are the blue collar workers of the white collar world and my wallet already groans under the weight of my photography addiction. For instance, this table was for sale at $325US, and my mind immediately kicked into gear and said, hey for just $150 more, I could buy that macro lens...

But alas, I bought neither. Such is my life.

Speaking strictly from a man's point of view, I think Betty is still pretty cute for a lady her age.

Snowy Egret?

I think that this is a snowy egret, photos taken at Ballard Park, in Melbourne, Florida. I'm pretty ignorant of the names of birds and flowers and such, but the pictures I've seen that look most like this guy are snowy egrets, so I'm going with that.

These are two pics of the same bird just a minute or two apart.

Kinda reminds me of me in the mornings. I get up and my hair is pointing in every direction and after a shower and combing, I'm all aerodynamic and ready to go.

My legs aren't that cool shade of green though. He's got me beat there.

(Update: Sorry, I had comments turned off. Blogger's new automatic save feature for the edit window will turn off the comments. It's happened to me a couple of times in the last couple of weeks, and to others that I know too.)